Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government is working to close the gap for Indigenous Australians?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and for her keen interest in this topic, as all members in this chamber are interested in this very important issue of closing the gap for Indigenous Australians. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his remarks today on this matter as well. As I said today, there were three important things in that speech today on closing the gap.

The first one is that, while we recognise that the closing the gap process was set up with all the best of motives, it's time to refresh that process by having genuine partnership with Indigenous Australians about what these goals are, what the targets are and, most importantly, what actions need to be taken to achieve these outcomes. That must also be done in partnership with states and territories. The suggestion that any member of this chamber, whether they be the Prime Minister or anyone else, can come in here on an annual basis and pretend to think that they and they alone, or one level of government or one agency, can go about closing the gap in this country is to misunderstand the fundamental challenges we face in this most important of issues for our First Australians. That refresh process is underway. It is about working closely with state and territory governments and, most importantly, working closely with the peak Indigenous organisations. They will be working with those other agencies of governments to ensure we get the refresh process right and we set targets.

The second point I made is that, yes, we must close the gap, but we also must stay positive and keep the hope alive about where we're heading. We need to ensure that, every time an Indigenous child gets into school and stays in school, we recognise that as a major change for that young person's life. That will change communities. The same is true whether it comes to housing or getting young and other Indigenous Australians into work, whichever program is used to achieve that outcome. We remain committed to all of those programs which are getting young and other Indigenous Australians into work.

As we move forward with the Closing the Gap process we need to have focus. The Prime Minister and the government are going to have that focus. We're going to focus on what the special envoy has recommended, and that is to get Indigenous kids in school and ensure that they stay in school longer. That's why today we've announced our teacher boost for remote Australia, removing all or part of the HELP debt for 3,100 students, to encourage more teachers to work and stay working in very remote areas where the greatest disadvantage exists for Indigenous Australians for education; a youth education package of some $200 million for extra support to give more Indigenous students the support and mentoring they need through their secondary studies; and getting kids to school by working community by community and school by school and investing $5 million in remote and very remote areas for projects that support and promote local school attendance. This is our plan; this is our commitment.